If I Knew Then
by smc-27
Summary: LP Oneshot. Proof that when the past comes back to haunt you, it's not always a bad thing.


**A/N:** Pretty much totally AU. Let me know what you think. This is my 100th story!

**----**

She sat quietly, smiling at something Nathan said to her, her arm linked through his in hopes of appearing more refined than either of them really were. She was wearing a skirt longer than her average, and a white button down shirt with a white tank top underneath, and she'd spent an hour trying to tame her hair.

She'd never been to his house before, and she'd only met his dad once, at a basketball game. His mom had just returned from a business trip and insisted she meet Nathan's girlfriend. Peyton didn't really have any choice but to go along with it, despite the fact that she'd never really met anyone's parents before, and she and Nathan fought more than they acted like an actual couple.

But they'd been good lately. He hadn't flirted with any other girls at the party they went to after his last game, and he didn't bitch about her spending time alone in her room with her drawings instead of alone in his room with him. They seemed to have come to some kind of understanding of one another, which was more than a little surprising, since they rarely ever actually _talked_.

But it wasn't as unhealthy as it sounded (or so she'd tell herself) because they were 16, and 16-year-olds' relationships are always fucked up, right? The way she saw it, instability was actually stability, by adults' standards. Younger people always had drama and messed up situations, because they didn't know what they hell they were doing.

Or maybe she was just rationalizing, because she knew in her heart that it wasn't right, but she liked him well enough to want to make it work anyway.

So with a crystal tumbler of club soda perched on her knee and Nathan telling her the stories behind all the basketball trophies on the wall across from them, she felt like this was just another stepping stone for them. She knew he liked her as much as she liked him, despite the fact that he didn't always show her that (quite often, actually, he showed her the exact opposite). They both had growing up to do. Maybe they could do it together.

Nathan was just in the middle of telling her the story of why his dad quit playing in college when the front door opened. Peyton looked over just in time to see a guy, about 20, in a wrinkled blue button down and jeans step inside. He jutted his chin towards Nathan, who muttered, "Hey man," before the blonde guy walked through to the kitchen.

"Who was that?" Peyton asked obliviously.

"My brother," Nathan said, like it was no big deal at all.

Only he'd never, not once, mentioned that he even _had_ a brother.

"You...since when do you have a brother?" she asked with a laugh, pulling away a little bit, hoping for some levity.

"Well...always." He stated the obvious because he wasn't sure what she was expecting of him. It was clear his brother was older, which meant that Nathan had always had a brother. He figured his answer would either make her laugh or piss her off. It was that risky game he always seemed to be playing with her. "He's older. Doesn't live with us."

"I figured," she said, rolling her eyes. "But...how..."

"My dad and his mom dated in high school. She got pregnant and had Lucas, but she and dad broke up. Dad met mom at college, got married, had me." He rattled it off, downplaying the series of events as his girlfriend sat there dumbfounded. "He's 19 and he goes to college a couple hours away. He's hardly ever around anymore."

"But...but you just chose not to tell me you have a brother," she said, hurt by the fact that he still wasn't confiding in her as much as she was confiding in him. It wasn't fun at all to have to try to wrestle things out of him. "That's kind of a big deal."

He shrugged his shoulder as his dad walked into the room. "Sorry. I would have told you eventually."

She didn't get a chance to say anything more, because Dan was insisting that she get a proper tour of the house she already knew like the back of her hand; Nathan's parents were away almost as much as her dad was, after all.

As they walked past the kitchen, she saw Nathan's brother (who's name she didn't even know yet) laughing with Deb and chopping vegetables, helping to prepare dinner.

And she cursed herself for thinking that he was really, really hot.

Nathan had her hand in his the entire time that Dan was leading them through the house, stopping to point out certain rooms or photos or pieces of art. She knew Dan pushed Nathan a million times too hard and rode him about school and basketball, but he wasn't a bad guy, per se. He wanted what was best for his son, and Peyton couldn't fault him that, though his tactics were sometimes tactless. More than once, Nathan had shown up at her door, seething from a run in with his father. But Dan seemed to be treating her well enough, and her head was spinning, thinking that he couldn't be all that terrible if he'd had a child out of wedlock and was still a part of that kid's life.

And she was saying 'kid' like the guy was a toddler or something, not a sexy college guy.

She kissed Nathan when Dan slipped into his office to make a phone call, mostly because she had to remind herself why he was her boyfriend. Most days, she could just kiss him and feel good (_amazing_) and that was reason enough to try and make it all work out between them.

When they were called to the dining room, Peyton let go of Nathan's hand, though she wasn't really sure why. And when his brother smiled at her (he was only being polite, she knew) she would have blushed if she'd let herself. But she sat down next to Nathan and across from the other guy, with Deb and Dan at either end of the table, and she bowed her head and draped her napkin across her lap, mentally telling herself to get a grip. Nathan's hand fell to her thigh and he winked at her, and she smiled at him, because he was trying to reassure her, could tell that she was nervous.

"Oh!" Deb cried. "I'm so sorry! Peyton, have you met Lucas?"

"Um. No. Not yet," Peyton replied, and she squeezed Nathan's hand under the table to tease him a bit. She looked across the table at the blonde guy, and he was smiling back at her.

"This is Dan's son, Lucas," Deb said needlessly. "He's a freshman at Gilmore. He's carrying that basketball team."

"Deb," Lucas said, his cheeks turning red. She was always doing that, talking up his achievements. Maybe because Dan didn't do it.

His dad had always been a part of his life, since he was little. Once he hit age four, he'd spent one weekend a month at the Scott household two towns over from the one his mom had moved to after he was born. By the time Lucas started spending time with Dan, Nathan was already born, and Lucas would come to accept that Dan would always love Nathan a little more, since he was, after all, the son born to him by the love of his life. Lucas was an accident, one that Dan never outwardly said he regretted, but had never, ever treated the same way he treated Nathan.

Lucas went to a different high school, one known more for its football team than its basketball team. He still, however was his varsity team's MVP and played his way directly into a full ride at a Division II school a couple hours from home. Dan was proud of him, he knew, but he was playing Division II ball, and there was another son who was destined to play in the NCAA, and maybe go even further than that.

Lucas knew his role in the situation. He and Nathan were close enough, but not as close as they possibly could have been, and if he was being honest, that was because Nathan was a complete asshole. He hadn't always been that way, but Dan's terrible habit of building the kid up, then tearing him down had left Nathan confused, conflicted, and angry, but with an ego the size of North Carolina that was, 90 per cent of the time, impossible for him to keep in check.

Nowadays, most of their conversations revolved around basketball, and most of their time together was spent playing the game. That was, when Nathan decided he had enough time to spare for his big brother.

And yet Nathan was the one who somehow got girls like this one, so cute and polite, to agree to go out with him.

"Nice to meet you," Peyton said simply, smiling across the table. He smiled back.

He barely spoke through dinner, only answering questions when they were posed to him, and Peyton did the same. At one point, when Dan and Nathan were going on about the Duke game they were going to in a couple weeks' time, Peyton caught Lucas' eye across the table, and she wasn't even sure why she was looking. He smiled softly, then looked between Dan and Nathan and kind of rolled his eyes, just subtly. She laughed into her water glass, and she'd never felt so..._strange_ before.

She felt young, like he was a million times older than her (not the truth, but he was a _college_ guy) but also like she liked the attention he was giving her, no matter how minimal or innocent. They'd barely spoken two words to one another, but he seemed nice, polite and sweet, and more like a side of his family that she didn't even know. She could only assume that his calm, quiet demeanor didn't come from Dan, who was neither of those things.

And she felt like she could have a whole conversation with him without even speaking a word, and it was kind of freaking her out. Also freaking her out were the butterflies in her stomach when he caught her eye across the table.

They were midway through dessert and talking about Peyton's upcoming cheerleading competition (yeah, way to make her feel younger, guys) and Nathan started sliding his hand up her thigh beneath her skirt. She grabbed her hand with his, resisted the urge to send him a reprimanding glare or yell at him, and clamped her legs closed. When the attention was off her, he leaned over and spoke an apology in her ear that she didn't quite believe. She honestly didn't know if she was so tense because his parents were there, or because this other, really cute guy was there. Probably both, but she convinced herself it was more of the former.

She cleared a few plates, insisting that she help, though Deb argued her, and when she was in the kitchen, she placed her face in her hands and tried to tell herself to get a grip. She was better, stronger, than this. One glimpse at a hot older guy, and she didn't have to fall apart. She was with Nathan (hot older guy's _brother_, for Christ's sake) and they were working, finally, on a few levels. And sure, he did stupid things from time to time (like his stunt minutes earlier) but he was a teenaged boy, and teenaged boys acted stupid.

"You okay?" a voice came from behind her, and she spun around quickly, her skirt flaring the slightest bit. "You look...overwhelmed or something."

"No," she said, plastering on a smile she hoped he wouldn't know was fake. But as Lucas walked towards her, she could see a subtle little smirk on his lips (less obvious than Nathan's) and at least three different shades of blue in his eyes. She was blushing, and she knew it. "I'm fine."

He nodded like he believed her, but he looked at her like he didn't. He started piling dishes into the sink, and Peyton reached for a tea towel. He liked that she wasn't just going to sit back and let people wait on her. Not that he'd ever met any of the other girls Nathan dated (he'd seen a few come and go, but Lucas knew post-sex hair when he saw it; they weren't exactly proper relationships), but Peyton seemed different. She carried herself like an adult, and listening to her speak over dinner, he learned that she was intelligent and really funny.

Nathan had found someone really special. And you'd think, as his brother, Lucas would be hoping that Nathan knew well enough to hang onto her. But he didn't think that. He was kind of...indifferent. He'd never had any ill feelings towards Nathan, and that wasn't what this was either.

But if he was being honest, this girl was just too good for Nathan.

"So how long have you two been together?" he asked as he started washing dishes.

She shrugged her shoulder and leaned back against the counter, hating how nervous she was. "A little over a month."

He simply nodded, and the psychology course he'd been taking led him to believe that there was something more going on with her. He didn't dare ask, because it wasn't any of his business, really, and he doubted she'd tell him if he did ask. Not to mention, he didn't know her well enough to pretend she owed him anything. She didn't, really. So they just stood, he washed while she dried, and they didn't say anything.

When Nathan walked into the room, wrapped his arm around Peyton's waist and leaned down to kiss her neck, she dropped the fork she was drying and said his name. Her cheeks were red again, and she stole a glance at Lucas just in time to see that he was feeling completely out of place. And rightly so.

She hit Nathan with her towel and rolled her eyes when he laughed and innocently asked, "what?"

"God, what's with you?" She turned around, only to see him shrug his shoulder.

"C'mon," he said, reaching for her wrist. "Let's go watch a movie."

She didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Lucas before Nathan was leading her towards the stairs. But Lucas watched her go, noting the way her delicate arm wrapped around his Nathan's waist and the way she looked up at him like she might have been falling in love with him or something.

He shook his head as he went back to doing dishes, because as he thought about it, it was pretty fitting that Nathan would land such a nice girl, along with getting everything else he ever wanted.

Peyton and Nathan broke up months later in spectacular fashion. Not only did she find out that he'd slept with at least a handful of girls while they were together, but the same night of their biggest fight, he hooked up with the sluttiest cheerleader on their rival team's squad.

She didn't know it at the time, but that wasn't the last Peyton would deal with a guy with the last name Scott.

----

She never suspected she'd be back in her home town, but after four long years in California, she decided that she could use a little bit of home.

She didn't entirely know what she was going to do. She'd worked at a record label, a major one, but that wasn't at all what she wanted to do, she'd learned the hard way. She loved the idea of signing bands and recording great music, but she didn't love the way things were done, the big business attitude taken, how things were more about money than they were about feeling or chords or lyrics. She wanted the music she found to mean something to someone. She wanted the music she found to be as important to someone else as the music she listened to was to her.

She realized that in L.A., that may have been a bit of a lofty aspiration. She couldn't change someone's life when all she was doing was grabbing coffee for the label head, and she couldn't go out and listen to amazing new bands when she was sorting mail until midnight.

Sure, she could have refocused and found a different career path, but that just wasn't her either. Art was an escape; music was her love. She figured that Tree Hill was as good a place as any to gather her thoughts and try to figure out if she really had it in her to mean something in the music world. It didn't have to be permanent either, which was the beauty of it. She was still young enough that nothing was set in stone and there was nothing really tying her down anywhere.

Her childhood home felt bigger, somehow, than it had when she was younger, and she was sure it should have been the other way around. But with her father away on a six month long job, it was just her in that old brick two story, and as much as she loved it, the space and the quiet, she felt somehow like there was a lot more there than she needed. But then again, maybe the fact that she'd spent four years living in a 600 square foot open concept apartment had something to do with that.

After unpacking and trying to rearrange her bedroom so that she'd _love_ it (she already did, she just wanted something different than she'd had at 17), she decided that it needed to be painted. It ended up a light grey with red trim, her linens matching and the artwork on her walls complimentary.

And that took up her first week home.

Then the boredom set in.

Tree Hill may have been her home town, but no one she knew was there anymore. Her friends had all moved away, moved on and done bigger things than their little town would have afforded them. Last she heard, the only people even still in the area were Bevin and Tim, and that was just such a strange pairing that she couldn't wrap her head around it. Besides, they lived three towns over and had a two year old; she wasn't about to look them up to catch up.

So her life was quiet, calm, and she didn't think that was a problem. After L.A., she could use the quiet. It was nice to know that she could sit out on her porch at night without worrying about who was walking around or what chemicals she was breathing in. Her neighbours all remembered her, loved that she was back, and welcomed her with baked goods and invitations to tea, and she wondered when they all got so _old_. But as they gushed over her looks and her hair and how much she'd grown up, she realized that she'd gotten old too. Well, older. 22 didn't exactly make her ancient.

It did make her confused and conflicted though. Because now that she'd been home for two weeks and done very little of anything at all, all those answers weren't coming to her as easily as she had thought or hoped. Bands weren't just playing around Tree Hill because there was no place for them to play. She didn't have money to offer them or contracts to talk about, and hell, she didn't even have any knowledge of contracts! The closest she'd come to understanding the legal side of the business was when she'd been asked to Xerox and file copies of contracts that had been signed at the label she worked for. Not exactly a relevant skill set.

But she could either freak out about it or change it, and she decided to change it.

She found a live music venue in town, one that hadn't been there when she was in high school. The owner was a sweet woman in her early 40's who Peyton had never seen around before. Had she not been just a little nervous, she would have asked when the woman came to Tree Hill. Karen took the meeting eagerly, and Peyton proposed that she could bring in bands to play at the club, both professional acts and unsigned, local talent. It didn't take any time at all for Karen to decide that Peyton's idea was a good one. It wasn't exactly a high-paying job, but they worked out a payment system based on certain criteria, and Peyton had something to do with her time.

That was good enough for her for the time being. After all, it wasn't like she had to pay for housing. Pretty much her only real expenses were gas for her car, and groceries. Throw in a little bit for clothes and CDs and she was all set.

She was at the local supermarket, pushing her cart toward the checkout line, her elbows resting on the handle bar as she snacked on cookies (her dad had always let her do it as a kid and the habit stuck). She wasn't really paying attention, and she very nearly ran over someone.

"I'm so sorry," she said, stopping in her tracks and straightening her posture.

"No worries," the guy said. He barely even looked at her, too focused on the contents of the basket in his hand.

"Go ahead," she offered. He looked over at her and she thought she recognized him from somewhere, but she really couldn't place it. "You only have a couple things."

He gave her a lopsided smile and a nod. "Thank you."

It wasn't until he stopped paying attention to her that she really started paying attention to him. She took in the sight of him, his blonde hair, the stubble on his jaw, the way his lips seemed to tug upward on an almost permanent basis. She knew him. Well, she at least knew who he was.

She followed him to the checkout lane and watched as he placed his items on the counter. It was very clear that he had no idea who she was.

He wasn't sure why this woman was staring at him the way she was, but he could feel her eyes on him as she stood behind him. It was nice of her to let him in front of her in line, but he didn't think he owed her anything. Oh, God. He really hoped that wasn't some lame grocery store pickup line that she'd read in Cosmo or something.

It was weird, though, because he'd only caught a glimpse of her, and she looked vaguely familiar. He knew practically everyone in town, and he certainly knew everyone his age in town, so he figured she must be new or something. But he couldn't figure out why a young person would move _to_ Tree Hill. Most of them were anxious to get out.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" she asked, smiling just a little bit.

Oh. So he did know her. Great. Now he'd have to try and figure out where from.

"I'm sorry?" He looked up at her and took another glance, noted the green in her eyes, the way she smiled like she knew some secret he didn't. But she was different too. Her hair was longer and not so curly. But be damned if he could remember her name. "You're...Yeah!"

"Peyton," she supplied, extending her hand. He shook it as he looked at her like he was completely surprised to see her. She figured he probably was.

"Right," he said. Peyton. Nathan's girlfriend. Or, a girl Nathan had dated like, a million years ago. "Of course. How are you?"

She laughed a little bit, and he smiled, because she seemed...freer or something. She was definitely more mature, not that he'd thought she was all that immature the last (only) time he'd met her. But she seemed confident, like she didn't care if she looked like a crazy person (she didn't) or if she'd caught him completely off guard (she had).

"I'm doing well, thanks," she answered. And for some reason, all he could think was that he liked that she was using proper grammar. "You?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." _Fuck_. He was pretty sure he'd been more confident as a 20 year old than he was now at 25. "Wow, I never..." I never thought I'd see you again. "I never expected to run into you."

"Crazy, right?" she said with a bit of a laugh. She watched as he pulled out his wallet to pay for his things, and she was struck with a little bit of sadness knowing their encounter was going to be ending soon. "I just moved back."

"Wow," he muttered. "I've been here a couple years. I coach the basketball team here."

"That's great!" she said, like she really believed it. He had to smile. She was...he wasn't entirely sure, but he knew it was something good. Probably a lot of good things.

He paid for his items and grabbed the bag, while still looking at her like he really couldn't believe he was standing in front of her. "Well, I have to..."

"Yeah," she said, waving him off a little bit.

"But um...I'm sure we'll see each other."

She smiled and nodded, and he responded in kind. He walked away thinking that he really didn't have enough time to talk to her.

And that he really couldn't wait to see her again. That probably really wasn't a good thing.

You see, he hadn't been alone for the last couple years in this little town.

Tree Hill wasn't his first choice of places to settle down. It wasn't like he'd spent a multitude of time there over the years; one weekend a month didn't exactly make him a proper resident.

He finished college, a Bachelor's in English Literature and four years of college ball under his belt. He worked hard, too hard probably, because he had nothing better to do and no one really to impress. He'd never be good enough in Dan's eyes, and Karen and Deb already saw him as some kind of saint or something (he supposed that next to Nathan, he kind of was one). The way he saw it, any success he achieved or any accolades he received were his own doing. It was nice to share it with the family members who cared, but his self worth didn't hinge on it. Or something like that. Basically, anything he did would always be overshadowed by what Nathan did. Nothing new there. After all, Nathan was the one who went to Duke, lead his team in scoring and was just drafted into the NBA in the first round.

It wasn't until his third year at college that things really started to change. He was walking across campus one day and he ran into a girl he vaguely recognized as someone who went to his high school. She was a couple years younger than him, but a cheerleader and the queen of all social circles. And she'd gotten even more beautiful.

As it turned out, Gilmore College had a fashion design program, and the boy she'd been dating in high school was going to a college the next town over, and she'd stayed in state to be close to him. By the time they broke up at Thanksgiving of their freshman year, it was too late for her to transfer out, and if she was being honest, she was growing fond of that little school and its modest campus. Never mind the fact that she had a three bedroom townhouse all to herself, since her parents at least cared enough to give her any material thing her little heart desired.

It was easy for him to fall for Brooke, and it was easy to get her to fall for him. It wasn't some scheme or some act of wool over eyes. She was sweet and she saw him as an individual, not someone she could compare to Nathan. She didn't even know who Nathan was. Lucas found her refreshing and fun, a nice change from the girls in his classes. Brooke's design course was only two years long, which meant they graduated at the same time, and that was just an added bonus to their already seemingly perfect relationship.

But after college, he was left with little more than a degree, a lease on a small apartment that was about to expire, and a girlfriend who could do what she wanted to do from wherever she wanted.

An unexpected call from Dan told Lucas that he'd been offered the job as head coach of the Ravens. He wasn't sure he wanted it. It wasn't the job, really, it was that Dan had pulled whatever strings he'd pulled to make it happen. Lucas had never taken charity from Dan before, and he didn't want to start, but he needed a job, and he needed a career path, and coaching would at least give him time to write. And Brooke was all for the idea, loving the fact that she could live along the water and have her study and design room overlook the boats as they passed.

Lucas was all for practicality, a steady income, and Brooke was all for the abstract, the _ideas_ of the life they could live. But together, they were actively trying to make that life happen.

They'd been living in Tree Hill for almost two years. Brooke had financial backers for her line, which was being sold in several stores and had a ton of local interest. Lucas' team was 2 and 2 on the season, which wasn't exactly amazing, but it wasn't terrible either.

And Brooke now wore a diamond on her left hand. A perfect proposal (candles and flowers and all that). Their life together was beginning.

So this strange, unexpected blast from the past? That didn't exactly fit into the plan they had laid out.

----

Peyton wasn't really looking for him. She wasn't really looking for anything.

Or, as the case may be, she didn't _think_ she was looking for anything.

But her life of watching shaky, grainy Youtube videos with bad audio of local bands and artists, sitting in her sweatpants in her living room, or wandering the beach thinking that maybe she'd randomly run into someone she used to know, was getting really, really boring. It was exhausting to do nothing. It was getting to the point that just going to the grocery store was one of two things. It was either a huge excursion, exciting and fun, or it was a huge excursion, tiring and dreaded.

All she wanted was a bit of her life back. Even at her loneliest in L.A., she could go out and see some singer/songwriter at the coffee shop around the corner from her apartment. In Tree Hill, there was no open mic, and she had yet to book a proper band to play at Tric.

But one day when she woke up, it was nearly 1:30, and she had no business sleeping in that late, so she decided to change everything, and she started with her wardrobe. She shed her track pants and went shopping, stopping at a few little boutiques with cute things in the windows, and she spent what was probably far too much money on clothes that she probably didn't need. But she figured that if she needed to feel better and more confident, then starting with some cute tops would be a good start.

She was walking down the main street when she noticed that she was right next to Karen's Café, a place she'd only heard of but had never been in. She walked inside, as laborious as it was, given that she had several bags from her most likely ill-advised shopping spree. It was late in the the afternoon, and there weren't many people sipping coffee or eating sandwiches. She sat next to a young man at the counter, setting her bags on the floor as she watched Karen speaking with the guy. She tried not to eavesdrop, but she could tell it was a friendly conversation, like the guy was someone that Karen knew well.

The man left, and Peyton and Karen carried on a conversation, and when Peyton suggested an open mic night to up the profile of the club as a live music venue, Karen was completely on board with the idea.

She left the café after a long conversation thinking that she'd done something seriously productive for the first time in too long. She gathered all her bags after Karen refused to take her money to pay for her several cups of tea, and made her way back out onto the street.

What she didn't expect was that she'd see Lucas walking down the street towards her. Or that he'd smile when he saw her.

"Hey!" he said happily. "How are you?"

"I'm...not bad," she said, only because she was surprised and didn't really know what else to say. She was overcome with nerves as he drew closer. "Hi."

"Hi," he laughed. "Here." He extended his hand to take her bags from her, and it shocked her so much that she couldn't even argue. "Where are you headed?"

"Home," she said, almost certain that he'd rethink carrying her things for her. Instead he just smiled and continued walking with her. "I live on Oak. Between Maple and Alder."

He laughed and nodded. "Gotta love Tree Hill and all that originality in naming its streets."

"Hey!" she cried laughingly. "It's charming."

"Well, I'm on Douglas, which isn't actually a tree." She smiled and glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Her little grin was almost unnerving. "What?"

"There's actually a tree called the Douglas Fir. It's one of the tallest species. The tallest one is actually in Oregon, and it's like, 100 meters." He looked at her like he was impressed, not annoyed that she'd just proven him wrong. She was a little relieved. "I watched a documentary."

"You watch documentaries about trees in your spare time?" he asked skeptically. He found that to be quite charming, actually.

"Well, when you have as much free time as I do, trees get _really_ interesting," she explained, making them both laugh. "So, um, shouldn't you be out...coaching or whatever?"

"Thursday practices are in the mornings. I have the rest of the day to myself," he said with a shrug of his shoulder.

"Right." They walked for a while longer, a block or so, until they were in the residential part of town. She had no idea what to say to him. She didn't know who he really was or why she wanted to know. She wasn't sure why he was being so nice to her. "I'm sorry. Are you...does this feel as awkward to you as it does to me?"

He laughed softly and nodded. "It's a little awkward," he said. "But I just figured that you probably didn't know many people, and...I guess it's just nice to be nice."

"Nice to be nice," she said softly. She smiled over at him and he smiled back. "Well thank you."

"You're welcome."

She was sure he was the most polite, kind person she'd ever met.

"So how's Nathan doing?" she asked, simply to make conversation. "He was drafted by...Dammit. I saw it in the paper."

"Houston," he supplied. "Yeah, he's doing well. He's just...settling down there or whatever. Everyone's pretty proud of him."

"Are you?" she asked quietly, simply because she wasn't sure if it was the right question to ask, but she figured she'd take a shot.

"Yeah. Sure."

She laughed and turned to look at him. "Convincing."

"It's not that I'm not proud. I just...I mean, it's not like it's a big surprise or anything," he said, shrugging his shoulder again. "Everyone's acting like he's some kind of hero or something, when all he does is the only thing he knows how to do." She just nodded, and he got the feeling that she really understood what he was saying. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just jealous."

"Maybe it's a little of both," she suggested.

Oh, she most definitely understood.

"Yeah," he admitted.

"Well, what about you? What's the only thing you know how to do?"

"I happen to be excellent at a lot of things," he said, and the laugh she let out made him smile.

"I'm sure you are," she muttered, and she almost blushed at how that sounded a little bit like an innuendo. They were drawing closer to her house, and she didn't really want to stop walking. "So coaching, though? That's your thing?"

"Well, I'm a writer," he said, before realizing that made it sound far more glamourous than it was. "I mean, I want to be a writer. I'm trying."

She looked at him like he was out of his mind. "I don't think you have to _try_ to be a writer. You either are or you aren't. If you say you're a writer, then you're a writer."

"Easy as that?" he asked with a smirk.

She shrugged her shoulder and tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "You tell me."

She was quickly becoming the most intriguing girl he'd ever met. She wasn't flirty or annoying like a lot of girls her age (if he was being honest). She didn't put on an act or pretend to be anything, and he was sure she was being completely honest about who she was, but he still had no fucking clue who that was. Not that he expected that after a couple chance meetings, he'd be an expert, but he thought he might have some insight. He didn't have much at all. But he liked what he knew. Very much so.

"Maybe it is," he said quietly.

"Yeah. Maybe." She, for some reason, was feeling playful enough to bump his shoulder with hers, and he laughed softly.

He suspected she had no idea that she'd just sparked a bit of a revelation. He'd gone through four years of college, taking creative writing and philosophy of the arts classes, and no one had ever made him feel more like a writer than this girl he barely knew.

"This is me," she said, pulling him from his thoughts. She took her bags from his hands and sent him a smile. "Thanks for the olive branch."

He laughed and nodded his head. "No problem."

They stood there in front of one another for a moment, like he didn't want to walk away yet and she didn't want to go inside. "Do you want to come in?" she asked. "For a drink or...I don't know. Ice cream?"

He smiled at her and she bit her lip in an undeniably adorable way. "I can't, actually. I have this thing..."

He hadn't thought of Brooke in in almost a half hour. He felt guilty for approximately ten seconds.

"Oh. Okay," Peyton said. If she was upset, she was really good at hiding it.

But he couldn't lead her on, and he didn't even know there was any risk of that, if she was interested or if she'd ever be interested. He just didn't want her to ever feel like he'd been misleading her or whatever. And even as he thought it, he was sure it made him a total jerk to even assume that she'd ever have feelings for him.

"Yeah, it's this thing with my fiancée. We have a standing date on Wednesdays," he explained. At least it wasn't a lie. Since Brooke was so busy on the weekends, they had their date nights during the week.

Peyton really hoped she hid her disappointment well, since she really didn't have any valid reason to feel it. Just because she'd met a nice, funny, polite, attractive guy, that didn't mean she had to have feelings for him.

Actually, that was exactly what it meant. But this wasn't the first time she'd been interested in a guy who wasn't available. Lucas wasn't any special case.

"Oh, that's so sweet," she said sincerely. In her head, however, she was wondering what kind of young couple needed to consciously set aside time to spend together. "Maybe I'll meet her sometime."

"Yeah," he said, smiling, though for some reason he really didn't want the two women to meet. It was stupid, but it was true.

"Thanks again," she said before turning to walk up the steps towards her house.

He was walking back to his own house, and when he stopped to buy roses for Brooke, he briefly let himself wonder what Peyton's favourite flowers were.

----

"So," Haley asked, "anything exciting going on?"

"Haley, it's Tree Hill. Your question is rhetorical," Peyton said with a laugh.

"Right. Maybe I should come out there. Do something crazy in that town," Haley said, but they both started laughing even harder, because the words 'Haley' and 'crazy' generally didn't belong in the same sentence.

Haley moved to Tree Hill during their senior year of high school, after her parents decided that their home in Greensboro wasn't close enough to the ocean. They went on and on about how they needed the salt water to 'blend with the oils of their skin'. Peyton was sure that it was completely made up, just to turn heads and embarrass their daughter. But they stuck around, and Haley and Peyton became close when they were paired up for an assignment in English lit class. When their views on As You Like It synched up almost eerily, they had a pretty good idea that they'd become really close friends. Finding out they had the important things like music and lyrics in common, their friendship was a lock. Haley went to Stanford when Peyton went to L.A., so they stayed pretty close.

And now Haley was working on her masters and calling Peyton every day in hopes of getting the dirt on life in Tree Hill. She seemed to have forgotten that there was never any dirt in Tree Hill.

"Come on. There's no way that town is that dead. There was always hot older guys when we were at the beach and stuff," Haley said.

"Well, they're not here anymore. Or they're here and they're married. Or they're engaged or something." She didn't know why she added that last part, but it actually felt pretty good to get it out of her system, to not have it churning around in her.

"Okay, why does it sound like you're speaking about someone in particular?" Haley asked, and Peyton could practically _see_ a raised eyebrow and a cheeky smile.

"It's nothing."

"Your 'it's nothings' are always just deflected somethings."

"Okay, that sounded way too deep for this conversation."

"Whatever," Haley laughed. "What's going on?"

"It's just...Okay, you remember Nathan Scott?" Peyton asked needlessly. The entire country remembered Nathan Scott.

"Vaguely. Tall, dark, handsome, and a complete ass? Rings a bell."

Peyton rolled her eyes. "_Anyway_, did you know he has a brother?"

"Yeah, you told me that. Older, right?" Haley asked.

"Yeah. His name is Lucas, and he lives here now. I met him once when I was dating Nathan, and...I don't know. I've talked to him a couple times here," Peyton explained, and as she spoke, she realized how juvenile it all sounded. "It's nothing."

"But he's married?"

"Engaged," Peyton specified. "It's nothing."

"You know, you saying that again doesn't do anything to convince me that you really mean it," Haley said sincerely.

"It's just...Okay, it's stupid, but when I met him, I was like, 16, and...I didn't think of him again until...ever. And now he's here, and he's really nice, and he's...attractive."

"And you like him, but you're..."

"Not his fiancée? Yeah. That makes it difficult," Peyton said, making them both laugh. "It's...It's..."

"Nothing?"

"Exactly. Nothing," Peyton said firmly.

And Haley was right. No matter how much she said it, it still wasn't really true.

"Well listen, I have to go, but just...if he's a nice guy, maybe being friends isn't terrible. He probably can introduce you to some other people," Haley said. She'd always been the rational one. "And who knows? Maybe his fiancée's really nice. Maybe they're like, the perfect couple that you never want to see break up."

"Helpful."

"I try."

"Goodbye Haley. Talk later," Peyton said with a laugh.

She hung up the phone and slouched down on the sofa, thinking that Haley was right. All she could do was be Lucas' friend, and maybe that'd be enough. She was sure he had friends he could introduce her to, other guys and probably a few girls who she'd probably get along with. Maybe he had a hot single friend.

But she didn't really want to meet any hot single friends he may have. She just wanted to get to know him. But he wasn't single, and she wasn't really sure how to be friends with someone (a guy she was attracted to) who she wasn't trying to date. Maybe that made her sound slutty or something, but it had been a long time since she'd just made friends with a good looking guy. Probably since high school or something. There's that whole When Harry Met Sally thing about men and women not being able to be friends. She was pretty sure that was an accurate assumption.

Honestly, she had no idea why she was thinking so much about this guy she'd had a crush on for like, five minutes when she was 16.

She threw her head back and groaned when she realized that he was just a little bit more than that.

He was a guy she had a _serious_ crush on _now_.

----

Brooke left for a series of meetings in New York, and she was set to be gone a week and a half. A full week and a half. Sure, she'd been gone for a few days at a time, but never as long as a week and a half. Lucas found he didn't really know what to do with himself without her there. It was weird, really. And he hated that he felt that way. He'd never, ever wanted to be the guy who was so dependent on another person to make him feel a certain way.

But Brooke didn't cook, so that task was left to him. Now he was cooking for one, so he kind of worked on his own schedule. They split the housework, but it had all been completed before she left. He had to coach his team and he had writing to do, but he found the house too quiet to work on plays or any pages he should have been trying to complete. He'd always loved the quiet, and now he couldn't bear it. Brooke was always on the phone or had music playing.

So he tried that. He scanned Brooke's CD collection before realizing for about the hundredth time how different their taste in music was. And not only did she listen to, well, bad music (in his opinion) but her collection was a disaster. There was no order to it. It wasn't alphabetized and CDs were in the wrong cases. He just shook his head before going back to the living room where his laptop was sitting. He scrolled through his list of music before settling on a little Allman Brothers.

But it did nothing to make him feel any more at ease. It had been three days since Brooke left, and he was going insane sitting at home by himself.

He called Keith to see if maybe the two could catch a game at the local sports bar, but Keith and Karen were going to a movie. Lucas almost laughed when he realized that his parents had a more exciting life than he did at the moment. He scrolled through his phone, but he knew that Skills had a date that night, and Junk and Fergie were both out of town. He knew lots of other people, but none he wanted to hang out with.

There was one other person. He just didn't have her phone number. But he knew where she lived. That was good enough.

He grabbed his jacket and his keys before he could remind himself that he didn't even know her last name, let alone if she wanted to see him or, what's more, spend time with him. But they'd had a decent conversation the last time they spoke, and so he figured that maybe he would take a chance.

It never even crossed his mind that going to see another woman while his fiancée was out of town was probably not the brightest idea he'd ever had. Brooke trusted him, and he wasn't going to give her a reason not to.

He didn't hesitate once or think twice about what he was about to do. Not until his car was parked in front of her house and he was standing in front of her door, did he really think about how weird it was going to be for him to just show up and ask to hang out.

Oh well. Too late now.

He knocked and waited, and just when he was starting to think she wasn't home (an odd sense of relief and disappointment falling over him at the thought), the door swung open and she stood in a pair of dark grey leggings, a beige thigh-length knit sweater that tied at the waist, and a pair of Ugg-like slipper things on her feet.

He found she looked adorable, her hair all up in a messy bun and her cheeks just a little pink. It wasn't all that cold out, but he liked her little outfit.

Cue the guilt.

"Hey," she said with a smile. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I might take you up on that drink," he said, referencing her offer from over a week ago.

She smiled a bit more and pulled the door open all the way, and he stepped inside, taking off his jacket as he did so. She took it from him and hung it up, and she was trying very hard to ignore the butterflies in her stomach and the fact that she was wearing what was definitely not her cutest outfit. And yet, when he looked at her again, she got the impression that he did think it was cute, even if he shouldn't have been thinking about her attire at all.

But look, she wasn't about to stay away from him all together just because he was with someone else. They were adults, and they could control themselves. They could spend time together without it having to mean something more, and he could think she was attractive (God, she hoped he thought she was attractive) without that meaning anything other than he was a man who was attracted to women.

She gestured for him to walk through to the living room, and she followed close behind.

And there was absolutely nothing stopping her from checking him out, so that's what she did.

"So, um..."

"Sorry to just drop in like this."

They laughed when they spoke over one another, and when Peyton sat down on the sofa, he sat at the other end. "No, it's okay," she insisted sincerely.

He noticed there were candles lit around the room and she had the basketball game playing on television (Nathan's game, and she looked sheepish). She also had a glass of wine sitting on the coffee table next to her phone and a drawing board with a few pencils.

"I feel like I'm interrupting," he stated.

"No! No, you aren't. I'm just...good at keeping myself company, I guess," she said, shrugging one shoulder.

He took her in a little bit. She had one leg on the sofa, tucked up under the other, and her hands were casually resting on her lap. Her hair, upon closer inspection, probably took all of two seconds to do (but he liked it; quite a lot). She looked so comfortable in this house, in this town, that it made him feel at ease. She meant it when she said that he wasn't interrupting.

"I always liked this house," he confessed, glancing around the room, the fireplace and the art on the walls.

"I'm pretty fond of it." He smiled at her and seemed to relax the more he sat there with her. She thought it was kind of cute that he was nervous. She didn't want to read into it. "So can I get you something? A glass of pinot blanc?"

"It's my favourite pinot."

She laughed softly and grabbed her own glass for a refill. "Mine too."

She walked into the kitchen and rest her hands on the counter in front of her to try to get her bearings. As much as she was making it seem that she was totally fine with him stopping by, there was a huge part of her that wondered why the hell he was stopping by. Didn't he have a fiancée to entertain? Didn't he realize that they hadn't spoken in over a week and had only (really) spoken twice before? Didn't he understand that women like a little bit of a heads up so they can at least attempt to look nice when company comes?

She grabbed the wine from the fridge and started pouring, and she took a long swig from her glass before topping it up again and heading back into the living room. She could do this. She could be friends with Lucas.

But then he had to go and smile at her and make her all weak in the knees again.

"So um...no better plans on a Friday night?" she asked after he thanked her for the wine.

"Says the girl watching her ex-boyfriend play basketball on ESPN," he said teasingly, and she laughed, tipping her head back. Okay, so he was right about that. "I was just sitting at home alone and going crazy. Thought you might be doing the same."

It wasn't exactly a lie.

And Peyton wanted so badly to ask where his fiancée was. He could tell she was thinking it. She was nodding, took a sip of her wine, then toyed with a wrinkle on her leggings.

"Brooke is in New York," he said simply. She nodded some more and he wanted to call her on it, but he just smiled instead. "And...I thought...I dunno, I figured it'd be nice to hang out with you."

She smiled and gnawed at her lip. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought he was saying that he'd been wanting to hang out with her for a while. And maybe he was saying that, but she didn't want to let herself believe it. She was already in too far with a guy who wasn't anywhere close to being available.

"So you draw," he stated, desperate for a subject change and something that would break the tension he'd created.

"Oh. A little bit. It's just a hobby," she said, shrugging her shoulder. They both glanced at the page sitting on her table, a portrait of a woman he didn't know. "That's my best friend. It's her birthday next week, so..."

"It's really good," he said seriously.

"Thanks," she said softly. She turned her attention back to the television (she'd never been able to take a compliment all that well). "He's playing well."

"You always follow his games?" Lucas asked, his brow raised like he was very amused by the fact that she was watching Nathan play.

"Sometimes. Why not, right?"

"Because you broke up a million years ago?" he suggested.

"Well, just because he was a total ass and cheated on me, that doesn't mean I can't be proud of him," she said. When she looked over at him, Lucas appeared to be genuinely surprised.

"He cheated on you?"

"Uh. Yeah," she said, like it should have been obvious. "Several times."

"What a dick," Lucas muttered, shaking his head. It was Peyton's turn to look amused. "Sorry, but...What kind of idiot treats someone like that? Someone like you, especially."

She turned towards him a little more, tucking her leg beneath her once again and resting her elbow on the back of the sofa. "Someone like me?"

Fuck. He'd dug himself into a hole. But he thought he might be able to get out of it. "Yeah. I mean, not that I know everything about you, but...You seem like just...such a nice person. And you were such a sweetheart back then."

She was almost sure she was blushing, but she didn't really care. He might not have known her very well, but he certainly knew how to make her feel amazing. "Thank you," she said. "And he's changed. At least a little."

"Yeah, a little," he agreed. "Probably not enough."

"Probably not. But it's something." They smiled at one another in mutual recognition, but she was wondering why they were talking about Nathan. "So what does your fiancée do?"

"She's a fashion designer," he said. He didn't want to talk about Brooke, but he didn't know why. And besides, if he said that, he'd look like a complete jerk. He wanted to avoid that, if possible.

"Wait. You said her name is Brooke?" she asked, her eyes wide. He nodded and she blew out her breath. "Brooke Davis. This is her shirt!"

He laughed and glanced at her top, because he figured it was allowed. "Well, she designed it."

"That's crazy! I didn't even know she lived here." He shrugged his shoulder and smiled wanly. "I'm sorry. I'm just having a bit of a fangirl moment."

"Yeah, she's kind of impressive," Lucas said, trying not to sound dismissive.

The truth was, the more successful Brooke got, the less important he felt. And he'd never told anyone that. The way Peyton was looking at him was telling him that she understood. He loved that she didn't mention it.

Instead, she asked him if he'd written anything she might know of (a long feature article on the state of sports in small town North Carolina that was printed in both the Raleigh and Charlotte newspapers), and how his team was doing. Every piece of information he told her, she acted like it was the most impressive thing she'd ever heard. But she wasn't acting, that was the thing. He got the feeling that she genuinely was impressed by him, that she admired his accomplishments.

But the conversation wasn't one-sided, either. It wasn't all him talking about himself, and when he asked her questions, she answered readily, which he hadn't exactly been prepared for. He recalled Nathan's complaining about her not opening up to him, but Lucas just chalked it up to her growing up over the years. She told him, very excitedly, about her first open mic night that was happening in a weeks' time, and all the plans that she had for the club. He wondered why his mother hadn't said anything about Peyton being the one in charge of all that, but then he realized that she had no reason _to_ tell him.

The bottle of wine sat empty on the table, and the game was long over, the sound replaced by music instead. She asked him if he'd heard of a certain singer/songewriter out of Nashville, and of course, he hadn't. So they sat and talked over that for a while, until he realized that it was close to one in the morning. He had no one to rush home to, but didn't want to overstay his welcome either.

But he didn't really want to leave, not when she was sitting across from him (though closer than they were at first) with her legs pulled up onto the sofa, mouthing the words to songs he'd never heard before.

"I should probably get going," he said regrettably.

"Yeah, it's pretty late, I guess," she said.

Neither gave any indication that they were going to move.

She laughed softly and looked to her lap, and Lucas smiled at her, though she wasn't looking. This whole thing would be so much easier for him if she wasn't so gorgeous. It wasn't the wine, and it wasn't all in his head. She was beautiful. Classy and elegant, but not in a pretentious way. She was sweet and thoughtful, and very caring. She was funny and intelligent and insightful.

She was sexy as all get out, and she wasn't even trying.

She was kind of making his heart race.

"Right. Well. Thank you for letting me crash your party," he said, teasing her, and she rolled her eyes and smiled at him. "Seriously. It was nice just hanging out."

"Yeah," she said softly, and if she didn't stop herself, she would have done something really stupid, like kiss him or at least tell him that she wanted to kiss him or something. "Um...when does Brooke get back?"

"Oh," he muttered. He furrowed his brow, not sure why she was asking. "Next Tuesday."

She smiled wider as they stood, then put one hand on her hip. "Well then you have no reason not to come to my open mic night."

He laughed and nodded. "I guess I don't."

He suspected she knew that there was no way he was going to miss it.

"Well, thank you for sitting here and listening to me talk about myself for hours."

"You didn't," he said, smiling as he headed for the door. "And thank you for letting me invite myself into your place."

She bit the inside of her lip and looked at him through her eyelashes as they stood at the door. "You didn't."

He really wanted to do something. To take her hand or touch her or _something_. She'd basically just said that the invitation for him to come into her home was standing. She was the sweetest thing he'd ever laid eyes on.

He reached for the doorknob instead, because he had a fiancée, and Peyton wasn't someone he could be involved with, and he shouldn't have even wanted to.

"I'll see you," he said, because it was safe, and it was true. Or at least he hoped it was.

"Yeah. Hey, seriously. It was really nice hanging out."

For whatever reason, stupidity probably, he reached out and hugged her, wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes for a moment when she wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you."

He left, and she locked the door, and she tipped her head back as she leaned against the wall.

She really hated that it was so difficult not to think of him as a potential boyfriend, or a potential something. But it wasn't easy to just brush him off. He was smart and cute and funny, and he was sexy. And she felt he understood her, and _no one_ understood her. She was sure that if she talked to Haley, her best friend would have told her to go for it, had the guy not been already spoken for. It had been a long time since Peyton felt anything like this for someone, but she knew it was wrong, and she knew it'd never happen, and she knew that any 'connection' between them was on a purely friendship basis.

It didn't matter that she'd felt better in his arms, in that friendly hug, than she had in any other man's arms in her entire life.

If anything, she'd learned that evening that there was no way she could compete with _Brooke Davis_, and she wasn't even going to _think_ of trying.

----

She didn't know why she was so shocked at how smoothly everything was running. The talent in Tree Hill was amazing, and she was proud to be the one showcasing that. The room was packed, there was a line at the bar that the three bartenders were doing their best to accommodate, and Karen had a delighted (and maybe impressed, too) smile on her face. Peyton thought she'd be on edge, completely nervous, and running around like a maniac, trying to keep everything under control. But as it turned out, her duties as host were pretty simple. She merely had to introduce each act, then sit back and listen, since the club was so well managed in the first place.

But it was nearing 10:30, and she hadn't caught sight of Lucas yet. He said he'd be there, and she'd believed him. She was too embarrassed to ask Karen if he'd said anything about coming, and she shouldn't have been focused on all that anyway.

But even so, she found herself smiling when she saw him walk through the door just as she was getting off stage after introducing another singer/songwriter. He nodded at her from where he stood, then said hello to his mother before walking over to the sound booth, where Peyton had been sitting most of the night.

"This is crazy!" he said happily, sort of in awe of the fact. "Look at this!"

"Not bad, right?" she said, grinning at her own understatement.

"Not bad at all."

"Sit!" she cried, gesturing to the stool next to her. "Grab a beer, or...I dunno, a Shirley Temple."

"Shirley Temple?" he asked incredulously, crossing her arms.

She shrugged her shoulder and looked at him from the corner of her eye. "You seem like the type."

He laughed heartily, tipping his head back, and leaned back against the stool. "I do, do I?" They both laughed, and she tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "Sorry I'm late."

"Don't worry about it," she insisted, shaking her head. Her little (however awesome) open mic night didn't have to be the top of his priority list.

"I just lost track of time."

"No explanation needed," she said, and when she winked at him, he didn't really know what it meant, but he sure liked it.

He watched her fiddle with buttons on the sound board and tap her foot as she listened to the act that was playing. He liked the way she moved, and he didn't mean that in any lascivious way. He just liked the way she carried herself. She was confident, but not arrogant. She was fun, but she had class. She was gorgeous, but he assumed she really didn't have any idea just how gorgeous. And, as he watched her interact with a few patrons, he realized that she was just _nice_. To everyone, whether she knew them or not. She was as approachable to everyone else as she was to him.

He watched her walk onto the stage and introduce the next act, a stand up comedian, and the only one of the night, and he saw her talk to the guy, laughing at something he said to her before he stepped up to the mic. Lucas watched her cross the room and head for the bar, and he watched her talking to his mother, the two smiling and laughing together. She started back towards him with two beer in her hands, smiling solely at him as she drew closer.

They spend the rest of their night, only two acts, on account of Lucas' lateness, talking about the evening and the success of it all, and he found that she was adorably excited. She'd found a band to open for another that she'd booked, and she and Karen had decided to make their open mic night a weekly event.

And she convinced him to stay and help clean up.

There wasn't a lot to do, the club staff took care of most of it, but the sound equipment, cables and PA system all needed to be stowed away back stage, so Lucas helped her with that.

"I hope you know how awesome this all is," he said to her as he carried the soundboard into the storage room for her.

She hung the cables she'd been carrying onto their designated hooks, then put her hand on her hip. "It kind of is, isn't it?" He laughed and nodded his head. "I'm just glad people came. I mean, that was the fear. That I'd host this thing and no one would come."

"Well, stop worrying about it. It's safe to say the night was a success," he said. They stepped out of the little storage room, and Peyton locked the door behind them. "You need a ride home or anything?"

She looked at him suspiciously. "How'd you know?"

He smirked, shrugged his shoulder and tucked his hand into his pocket. "Your car is hard to forget, and it's not here."

"That'd be great, actually," she admitted.

Once she was in the passenger seat of his car, she took her first deep breath of the night, rest her elbow against the window and put her head on her hand. She was so relieved that the night had gone well, that she was getting the ball rolling on her projects, but all she wanted to do right now was slip into some pajamas, crawl into bed, and not get up for about twelve hours. Give or take.

"Tired?" he asked once he was in the car. She made this little humming sound that he was almost ashamed to even let send a shiver down his spine. "Well, you can rest easy."

She made the sound again, and he had to grip the steering wheel tighter when he looked over at her, eyes closed and looking so comfortable in his car.

This woman was going to get him into so much trouble. And yet he couldn't stay away.

They were quiet as they drove through the dark, empty streets towards her house. He had some old Ben Harper playing, and he glanced at her just in time to see the corner of her lip turn upward. He didn't know why he wanted her approval, why he cared about something so silly. But Brooke never appreciated things like his music or his car or really anything quiet at all. They drove her BMW everywhere, and she played the top 40 radio station about two volume levels too loud for his liking. But he tolerated it because he loved her.

The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to think that he shouldn't have to _tolerate_ anything. Things should have been mutually agreed upon, compromises made. He shouldn't have had to change his clothes upon her disapproving look. And he should have had at little more say in wedding-related things.

His stomach churned when he momentarily let himself think that he wasn't all too sure there should have been a wedding.

He pulled to a stop in front of Peyton's house, and the car idled for a few moments. He realized she wasn't moving, and he smiled again. She was in a sleep, a light one, and when he said her name, her eyes flew open.

"I'm sorry," she said, laughing adorably. "Thanks for the ride."

"Not a problem."

"I'll see ya," she said as she reached for the door.

But she wasn't sure she really believed the words, because she knew his fiancée was coming back to town, and she was sure this little...whatever it was she had with him (because it was definitely something) wouldn't be carrying on.

Lucas waited until she was inside before driving away, and he was so conflicted that he felt the need to drive around the back roads of town for a couple hours to clear his head.

What he came up with was that he just liked Peyton as a person, thought she was lovely, and it didn't have to mean anything other than that. He couldn't let it mean anything more than that. He'd stop seeing her so much, not that he'd seen her a lot anyway, and he'd stop having such deep, revealing conversations with her.

But he couldn't fall asleep that night, because he didn't _want_ to do _any_ of that.

----

Brooke walked into the house in a whirlwind. She'd been home for a week, and this particular day, she'd gone shopping and then to lunch with Karen. Lucas took the opportunity to stay home in the quiet and write. Maybe not surprisingly, the feeling that had driven him out of his house that night, that it was too quiet, was one he was longing for now that Brooke was home.

She dropped her bags by the door (he noticed there were a lot of them, and rolled his eyes when he knew she couldn't see him) and then walked over to where he was sitting on the sofa. She sat down right next to him and tried to steal a glance at the screen, but he closed his laptop before she could read anything.

"Good day?" he asked.

"Uh huh. What'd you do? Just this?"

He tried not to be offended. It was hard, but he managed it. _Just this_ was, in fact, his job. Or his passion. Whatever his writing was, it wasn't _just_ anything. He didn't appreciate the insinuation that it was. But he also wasn't about to explain all that to her, or apologize for it.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

She pursed her lips, but said nothing more about it. "So Karen and I ran into this Peyton girl."

"Oh?" He thought he did a pretty good job of not letting it sound like he was far more interested in this conversation now.

"Yeah. She's really nice. You know she dated Nathan?" she asked with a laugh.

"Yeah. Yeah, I knew that," he said. "I've seen her around a few times. We've talked."

"Oh. Good. She said she doesn't know many people yet," Brooke said, standing from her place. "I was thinking we should have some people over and invite her."

"Sure," he said. He hoped Brooke wouldn't hear the trepidation in his voice. The last thing he wanted was to have Peyton to his house when Brooke was around.

The more he thought about the two women and his feelings for both of them, the guiltier he felt. His relationship with Brooke was solid, comfortable and stable and what he'd always wanted. But it was boring. It didn't take much for him to realize it, just the presence of a certain blonde in his life. Peyton reminded him that there was more out there, more to life and relationships than just the status quo. It wasn't too much to ask for a little spontaneity or laughter. And the thing was, he hadn't done anything insane with Peyton - it wasn't like they were trying out adventure sports - he just felt like it was newer.

And that's what he'd chalked it up to. Getting to know Peyton was exciting, and getting to know Brooke had been exciting too. Maybe it wasn't the woman, but the act of discovering who the woman was, that he was so thrilled with.

But that was an awful thing, too, because what kind of guy did that make him? Was he the kind of guy that would never be truly happy in a relationship, because he grew bored of the situation too quickly? These were the kind of thoughts that had been plaguing him for days.

But he still put on a nice shirt and invited his friends to this gathering Brooke insisted they have, and he pretended that he didn't know Peyton as well as he knew her when she walked through the door. It didn't help his cause that she was wearing a gorgeous dress and laughing with the people she was getting to know, his people. And when she leaned forward to rest her beer on the table, he took a long breath and turned around after catching a glimpse of the fabric of her bra.

He stepped outside onto the balcony, needing air, and rest his hands in front of him as he bowed his head. He needed to pull it together before he fucked something, or everything, up. He knew that if he was away from the 'party' for too long, Brooke would get suspicious and come looking for him, so he was thrilled when his phone rang in his pocket.

"Hello?" he said, not recognizing the number on the screen.

"Hey. It's me," Nathan's voice came.

"Oh. Hey," Lucas said in surprise. "What's up? How are you?"

"Pretty good. Just figured we haven't talked in a while," Nathan said. "How are things?"

"Good. We're just...Brooke decided to have this party," Lucas said, and Nathan laughed. "What?"

"You hate that shit."

Lucas chuckled and glanced through the glass door into the house, where he saw Peyton and Brooke talking with Mouth. "Yeah, I do."

"So I heard Peyton moved back. You remember her? I dated her in like, 11th grade," Nathan said, laughing softly.

"She's in my living room right now."

"No shit," Nathan said. "How does she look? She was always so hot."

Lucas laughed, simply because of all the shit Nathan talked, he actually did speak a lot of truth. "She looks...good."

"I know what that means," Nathan insisted roguishly. "That means she looks hot as hell, and you just can't say it because you're married."

"I'm not married," Lucas was quick to correct.

"Whatever. You will be."

They talked a while longer, about basketball and Nathan's games mostly, but Lucas couldn't get his mind off the fact that he was going to be married. That just sounded so final. It used to be exciting, the thought of spending his life with someone, of having that perfect relationship. Now it terrified him.

What if Brooke wasn't the right person?

What if he'd met the right person, but it was just too late?

He plastered on a smile, took a breath, and headed back into the party, and when Brooke kissed him quickly, he was almost certain he saw a flash of jealousy or something in Peyton's eyes. He would have read more into it, but he supposed the fact that he was looking at Peyton when he was kissing his fiancée spoke volumes.

----

Peyton ran into Brooke once when she was walking from Tric to the café to drop something off to Karen, and the two talked for a few minutes about Peyton's upcoming show, and Brooke's upcoming launch. Brooke mentioned something about Lucas' team, and Peyton felt awful for not attending any of his games. But he'd never invited her or said anything about it, so she brushed it off.

When Brooke said that she had to run because she was meeting with her florist about wedding centerpieces, Peyton smiled politely and pretended that there wasn't a part of her heart, just a small piece, that was breaking.

----

The absolute last thing she needed was for her car to spaz out on her. It wasn't like it was brand new or anything, but she'd just had the stupid thing serviced when she moved back, and she didn't think it should have been causing her any trouble. It didn't help that she had a two hour drive ahead of her, and now had no way to get anywhere at all.

In a panic, she pulled her phone from her purse and scrolled through her contacts. She realized that she only had the numbers of two people who lived in Tree Hill saved in her phone. Karen and Lucas. Sure, she'd met people at that gathering at Lucas' place, but she hadn't exactly _made friends_ yet. So she reluctantly hit send and waited for him to answer. He sounded so casual, so relaxed when he answered, that she was almost envious. He would have known it was her calling, but he wasn't nearly as nervous as she was. She had no idea why.

"Hey, I know it's...almost late, or whatever, but I didn't know who else to call. Actually, I don't have anyone else to call," she rambled, rolling her eyes at herself. "But look, my car won't start, and I have to get to Charlotte by 11:00 to see this band that I promised I'd meet with, and I wondered if you could come take a look?" There was silence on the other end, and she was sure she'd just made a huge fool of herself. "You know what? Forget it. I'm sorry."

"No, no, no," he said quickly. "No, it's okay. I just...I was surprised."

"No, of course you were," she said, almost laughing. "This was completely out of the blue."

"Don't worry about it. I'll come over and see what I can do."

"Are you sure? Because if..."

"No, I'm sure. Of course I'm sure," he said.

She smiled to herself when he said he'd be there in a few minutes, and she checked the time again after she hung up the phone. She took a deep breath and realized that her attire of jeans and a Gibson tee shirt definitely wouldn't do now that she was going to be seeing Lucas. It was stupid, maybe, but the last thing she wanted was for him to see her like some sort of slob or something. It was one thing to go to a bar and talk to a couple eager twenty-year-old guitar playing kids, but it was totally another to see Lucas, this guy who she had some kind of thing with.

She knew it was wrong, she really did. The guy was engaged, for crying out loud. But there was nothing wrong with wanting to look nice. That was it. She just wanted to wear something cute enough to...

Well, that part she wasn't exactly sure of.

But she was sure that her skinny jeans, black satin top and patent leather heels would do whatever it was that she wanted them to.

As Lucas was driving towards her place, he hated to admit that he was anxious (he wasn't _nervous_) to see her. It had been about two weeks, and he was starting to get the sense that she was avoiding him. In such a small town, he had been sure that he would have run into her somewhere, but she'd been suspiciously absent from anyplace he'd thought she would have frequented.

So maybe, if she was avoiding him, she had a reason, he deduced. He wasn't entirely sure what that would have been, but he just assumed that it was because she was busy and still technically trying to get her feet on solid ground. It wasn't that she didn't want to see him, it was that she had no reason _to_ see him.

Or something like that. He really had no fucking clue, and to be honest, he was feeling a little guilty for even thinking about it so much at all.

She was waiting outside when he drove up, and he opened the hood of her car and peered inside with the work light she'd found in her garage. She watched on (God, he looked sexy) as he leaned down and toyed with cables and wires and hoses.

"It's your rad," he deduced, wiping his hands. "You're gonna need a new one. Keith can do it for you."

"Great," she mumbled. He stared at her blankly. "No, I mean, that's great that Keith can do it, but how am I supposed to get to Charlotte?"

He shrugged his shoulder and dropped the hood closed. "I'll drive you," he said nonchalantly.

"Luke, that's...You can't do that."

"Why not?" he asked, smirking at her. He started walking towards his car at the curb. "Get in!"

"Lucas!" she cried, though she was following him. "What about Brooke?" She bit her lip as she asked the question, because she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.

"I'll call her from the road," he said as he opened the car door for her. She took a deep breath and he watched as she seemed to deliberate. She smiled wanly and shook her head, but rolled her eyes and got into the car.

He waited until they were on the highway to call Brooke, and from the side of the conversation that Peyton could hear, she figured that the other woman was less than impressed that Lucas was going to be out until into the morning. It put Peyton into a bit of an awkward position, having to sit there and pretend she couldn't tell that Lucas was getting an earful. She knew he shouldn't have picked her over his fiancée. There was a part of her that loved that he had.

He ignored the tension when he hung up the phone. He figured that addressing it would just make Peyton feel worse, so he asked her about the band they were going to see. He listened to her talk about the music like it was life-altering, and when she insisted that he'd love it, he absolutely took her word for it. She'd never steered him wrong before, and while they hadn't even known each other a couple months, he trusted her completely.

He smiled as they talked about his team and schedule, and when she promised she'd come to a game, he looked over and told her it'd be great to see her in the stands. She was glad that her jacket hid the goosebumps on her arms.

The club was packed, and the energy was insane. Peyton was on the VIP list, and there was a table reserved for her, which Lucas teased her about, but admitted was very cool. Neither of them wanted to drink, Peyton because she was 'working', and Lucas because he was driving, so they just sat and talked until the band took the stage.

She knew how it must have looked, the two of them sitting close together on the little bench seat behind the table. They were laughing together, and she'd swat his arm if he teased her. At one point, her hand fell to his thigh when she wanted to tell him something, and she reeled herself in, because she knew she was flirting with the world's least attainable guy. She mouthed an apology, but he just smiled and shook his head to tell her not to worry.

It wasn't like he didn't enjoy it. Every time he made her laugh, or every time she said something that made him laugh, his heart raced. Her hand on his thigh felt fucking amazing, and he hated that she had moved it.

He wanted to be the couple that everyone thought they were.

He sat and watched as she approached the lead singer of the band, then spoke with all five members. She laughed and was lighthearted, but then she could switch to speaking about business the next second (and he could tell). There was a lot of nodding, a lot of smiles from the band, and a very happy Peyton when she walked back over to Lucas. He stood up as she drew near, and she, very unexpectedly, threw her arms around him.

She just couldn't help herself. She'd just accomplished something huge, and she wanted to share it with someone, with him. He laughed as he held her, and she felt it through her whole body.

"They're in!" she said needlessly. "They're gonna come play at Tric!"

"That's amazing!" he said, though he already suspected as much. She hugged him again, and he laughed again, but he wrapped his arms around her, because he really, really liked the way she felt all pressed up against him. He liked it too much. "Peyton," he said softly, his hands running down her back.

She pulled away just slightly, though her arms stayed around him and his arms stayed around her. Her eyes met his and he seemed to stare her down a little bit, as though he thought that if he looked hard enough, he'd be able to see what she was thinking.

"We should go," she said, trying to smile, trying to break the tension.

He just nodded and followed her out of the club. He didn't really know what else to do.

They drove in silence for a good twenty minutes before he actually pulled the car over to the side of the road, put it in park and turned to her.

She was dreading this conversation. There was no need for him to point out and talk about the sexual tension, the connection or whatever it was between them. She didn't want him to say something, to put it out there and have it existing in the air between them, because that made it too big, too real. If she was telling the truth, she didn't need it to be any bigger or more real than it already was.

"Peyton, this..."

"Lucas, we don't have to talk about it. It was a hug. It was nothing."

There was that word again. Nothing. And it was even more of a lie now than it was weeks ago when she said it to Haley.

"Okay, maybe it was," he said, turning to her and speaking earnestly. "But I can't...I mean, I'm just..." He stopped speaking, made note of how pleading her eyes looked, like she just wanted him to stop talking. "I have Brooke, but I...I'm...There's this, and it's so...I'm confused."

"I know," she whispered. "I get it."

"I can't..."

"Lucas, I _know_," she said. She shook her head and looked down at the space between them. "Can we just...Can you just drive? Please?"

He sighed and turned his eyes back to the road, and after he pulled back onto the highway, he reached over and took her hand for a moment. He squeezed it once and let it go.

They didn't talk for the rest of the drive. Didn't talk when he pulled up to her house or when she got out of the car.

Didn't talk for another week after that.

----

Brooke left again, for L.A. this time, but not before the worst fight they'd ever had.

He'd been writing a lot, almost constantly when he wasn't at the school, and he didn't appreciate it when Brooke made comments about his being attached to his laptop _again,_ or too wrapped up in _that_ to make dinner, or ignoring her for some _silly story_. He never felt more far away from her than he did in the moment that he realized that she had absolutely no fucking clue what he wanted from this life. And she'd never even bothered to ask. So he told her so, and she said he was overreacting, which he felt was neither fair nor true. He said he refused to be a kept man, and she scoffed and said that wasn't what she wanted him to be either, but that her salary more than covered their living expenses.

She didn't understand. She didn't understand him.

He slept in the guest room that night, and she left for her business trip the next day, a note on the counter saying that maybe the timing couldn't have been better, that she'd call him when she landed and see him in a week.

And so he found himself again in an empty home, and the complete opposite of last time, he loved the silence, loved that she wasn't around to fill the space with noise. It didn't bother him this time. He was relieved. He didn't want her there, wanted time away from her.

He missed someone else, a dull ache in his heart that only got worse once Brooke left. There was nothing standing in his way, not physically. And maybe he'd all but asked Peyton that they spend less time together, but he realized that was the very last thing he wanted to do.

He ran into her two days after Brooke's departure. He hadn't wanted to call Peyton, no matter how desperate he was to hear her voice. He was fighting it. He really was trying not to think about her or want to see her or wonder if whatever they had, whatever there was between them, was something bigger, or could have been something bigger than he even thought.

"Hi," Peyton said nervously as they stood in front of one another on the beach. It was dark and cool out, and she wrapped her arms around herself for more than just one reason.

"Hi," he echoed. "Listen, do you have some time? Can we...You want to just..."

"Yeah. I've got some time."

They were quiet as they walked toward a nicer place to sit, and when they arrived at the little park bench, Peyton tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket, because she was sure that if she didn't, she would have reached out for him, and that was just not okay. Their last encounter set the ground rules for that pretty well.

She hadn't stopped thinking about him, about their hug and the awkward admittance of some kind of feelings that they both managed to sweep under the rug as soon as it happened. She hadn't stopped thinking about how their intense, silent two hour drive wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as it probably should have been. She hadn't stopped wishing that she'd met him first, before Nathan, before Brooke.

She hadn't stopped thinking that she was, quite possibly, falling in love with this man, this man she couldn't and wouldn't ever have.

"I'm glad I bumped into you," he confessed. Her heart raced. He seemed to know just how to keep her hanging on. He hated that she didn't respond to that. "I um...I've wanted to talk to you."

"Have you?" she asked. For a guy who wanted to talk to her, he certainly hadn't made any effort.

"Yeah," he said softly, because he was sure that if he didn't say just that, he'd be saying a whole lot of other things. "How are you?"

"I've been...okay," she said seriously. "I've been really busy."

She wished she'd been able to say that she hadn't gotten a chance to miss him, but it would have been a lie.

"Good. That's good."

She let out a huff and turned towards him, her knee pressing against his. He didn't know what he'd done to make her angry (okay, maybe he did). "Can we just not make small talk, here?" she requested. "We were...You know practically my life story. I don't want to make small talk with you."

"Okay. I'm just...I'm sorry if I made things...weird, or...if I jumped to conclusions, or..." He looked at her, and she was looking straight into his eyes, and he thought for sure she'd know what he was trying to say, even if he wasn't saying it well. So he decided to cut straight to the chase. "Or if I lead you on."

"You didn't," she said, because it was the truth. "You were honest with me from the start and...We just didn't...I don't know what happened."

"I know. But it _did_ happen," he said, turning towards her even more. "And that's making things really hard for me right now." She reared her head back, because she heard that like it was an accusation. "No, I didn't...I'm not blaming you. I'm not blaming anyone. It's just...Maybe it's just me, but this feels..."

"It's not just you," she almost whispered.

"It's not?" he asked, his eyes fixed on the space between them.

"You think this has been easy for me?" She shook her head when he looked up at her. "I came here not expecting anything. And then there was you, and then...This. And you're engaged, Lucas."

"I know."

The way he said it gave her far too much hope that he was about to say (or might someday say) that he was no longer engaged, that he was available. She couldn't let him throw everything away because they had a few decent conversations and some nice moments. She wasn't about to come between he and his fiancée, and she certainly didn't need the entire town knowing that she was the reason for a breakup, were one to take place.

"So I think we should really just...stop seeing so much of one another," she said, though her tone didn't match the conviction of her words. "It'd just be easier."

He scoffed, shook his head and looked at her incredulously. "No. It wouldn't."

"Luke."

"That's the thing, Peyton. I don't want to...I can't see less of you," he insisted. "I...I want to..."

"Can you please not say things that you can't back up? Because this is all really sweet, but all I can think is that you don't really mean it. Or that you don't know that you don't mean it."

He couldn't let her go on thinking that what he was saying wasn't true. There was no way he could let her think that he was just deluded and confused. He wasn't. He knew exactly what he wanted, and that was what was causing the conflict; what he wanted, and what he had. The only way he could even think to prove it was to kiss her.

She didn't expect, honestly hadn't thought it would have ever happened (she'd convinced herself, any time she thought about what it'd be like). But his lips pressed against hers just before she was going to speak again, and she found herself kissing him back almost instantly. He was so much better than she'd even considered he would be. Soft and gentle, but definitely not too much so. His hand slipped into her hair, and she grabbed the front of his jacket to pull him closer, because even if it was wrong, this may have been the only kiss she'd ever get from him, and she didn't want to let it end just yet. He pulled away after a few moments, then rest his forehead against hers.

"You kissed me," she stated. His eyes were still closed, and his breathing seemed laboured.

"Yeah."

"You...you just kissed me."

He moved away, opened his eyes and shook his head, but his hand was still tangled in her hair. "I know," he said softly, his eyes searching hers.

"But you're..."

"Don't say it," he pleaded. "Just...I'm sorry."

"But..."

"I know," he said, his hand falling away from her completely. She sighed and closed her eyes. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. I just...I wanted to."

She figured they were past the point where admitting things was taboo. "I wanted you to."

He, against his better judgment, leaned forward and kissed her again quickly. "I don't know what this is," he confessed. "But...I don't want to stop it."

"I can't be...I won't let you cheat on her with me," she said, disregarding the fact that she could still taste him on her lips.

"No, I don't want that."

"Well, what _do_ you want, Lucas?" she asked, trying not to get annoyed with his vague non-answers and avoidance of the issue at hand.

"You!" he almost shouted. He lowered his voice and moved his thumb along the inside of her wrist. "God, Peyton. I just want _you_."

----

By spring, Lucas was living in a two bedroom house in a quiet part of town. Alone.

Well, not technically alone, but the house was his and no one else really lived there, not all the time.

He almost laughed, because as difficult as things were for him growing up, for the past few years, things just started happening to him. Brooke, his coaching job, Peyton. So when Brooke returned from L.A., talking about how she felt like they were drifting further and further apart, he wondered how he got things so easy.

Easy wouldn't have been the right word. She suggested they either take a break or get counseling. He questioned what good either would do. That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

But she wasn't angry. He wondered if she was almost _happy_. They spoke calmly and rationally, both coming to the conclusion that the perfect life they'd planned out was far from perfect. Brooke wanted to conquer the world, and Lucas knew she could do it. He wanted a quiet life in Tree Hill, a steady job and a family, and despite the fact that a ring sat on her fourth finger, she admitted that she couldn't see much further than the wedding day. They both knew it hadn't always been that way, that they'd loved each other and honestly thought they were right for one another.

But still, when she took the ring off and placed it in his palm, he knew they were both experiencing the same feeling of relief that they didn't have to go through with something they both knew wasn't quite right.

He put most of his stuff in storage and settled into the guest room at his mom and Keith's place while Brooke packed her things and dealt with realtors, since the house was in her name. She decided to move to New York, where her mother was living, and try to make the most of the fashion world there, and Lucas told her she'd do great. He even drove her to the airport and laughed at the tears in her eyes as he hugged her for the last time, kissed her temple, and let her go. She didn't look back, and he didn't wait for her to get through security before he left.

They were over.

He saw Peyton for the first time since that night at the beach, the day after Brooke left. He was sipping coffee and talking with Keith at the café and she walked in, wet from the rain and shivering from the cold. She saw him and smiled, made small talk with Keith and Karen, and Lucas offered to help her with something.

She didn't need help with anything. She knew neither of them were very good actors, and that Keith and Karen saw through the ruse, but neither of them said anything.

Lucas and Peyton mutually decided that they should just continue to get to know one another, without labeling anything. Lucas didn't want his name thrown around in any (more) gossip, and Peyton didn't want anyone to associate her with the breakup of his engagement.

"So, we're just going to...we'll hang out," he said from his place on her sofa. Peyton was sitting in a chair across the room, looking nervous and cute and excited, all at the same time. There wasn't even a question of whether he'd made the right decision.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah. It'll be just like before, only...only without the guilt."

He laughed and shook his head. She certainly had a way of putting things. "Right."

She got up to get them a couple drinks, and she stood in the kitchen for a moment, to let it all sink in. He was single, and he wanted her, and they just had to wait it out and let things settle down before they did anything crazy.

When she walked back into the living room, she set the two glasses of water on the table and leaned down, took his face in her hands, and kissed him, because she didn't want to wait any amount of time before doing that. He was completely surprised, but he managed to place his hands on her arms as he kissed her back, and when her tongue swept into his mouth, he pulled her towards him and she ended up in his lap.

"Okay," he said once they finally parted.

"Sorry," she mumbled, her hands still in his hair. "Trying out that no guilt thing. Feels good."

"Yeah," he laughed. "Really good."

And even that was an understatement.

They began seeing more of one another, mostly in public and often in a group. She went to every one of the Ravens' games, and she'd sit with Keith and Karen wearing the royal blue tee shirt Lucas had given her. He'd go with her to scout bands, or to do things as routine as shopping. They went to dinner a few times, and they tried to not cross too many lines or make it obvious that they were leaning towards something on the other side of friendship.

But then Karen invited Peyton and Larry to Christmas dinner, and things changed from there. Keith asked if they really thought they were fooling anyone, and Larry laughed and said that he'd only been in town for a week and even he could see what was going on. Nathan had come in for a few days, and Deb was there, too, and they both just laughed at how pink Peyton's cheeks were. She was feeling an odd case of deja vu, only this time, she was sitting next to Lucas with Nathan across from her. And her crush on Lucas was much more than just a crush.

The ridicule they were enduring was almost worth it when Lucas leaned over and kissed her in front of everyone. Sure, they'd done it in the private of her home (but out of respect for one another and their strange situation, they hadn't done anything more than just kiss), but this was different. This was a public acknowledgment of what they were both feeling.

And it wasn't a surprise to anyone.

She helped Lucas find his own house (just two streets over from hers, on Birch Street, which they shared a laugh over, recalling one of those first conversations) and helped him paint and decorate.

And she started sleeping over a few nights a week. The other nights, they were at her place.

She was promoting more prominent bands' concerts at Tric, and it was getting to the point where managers were calling her to see about booking dates, not the other way around. She was making a name for herself, and she was doing something she felt was worthwhile. Local businesses loved it all, because the shows were bringing dinner and hotel guests from out of town when an act would come through. Lucas would tease her about bolstering the local economy, but it wasn't really a joke. She was a success. Lucas couldn't have been more proud.

"Peyton," he called out as soon as he stepped through the door. She'd stayed at his place the night before and insisted that she wasn't going anywhere for the rest of the day, after he accidentally woke her up before he left for school.

"Hey," she said, walking out from the bedroom into the hall. She was still dressed in the pale blue satin slip she'd been wearing when he left that morning. He wasn't stupid enough to complain.

"What'd _you_ do today?" he asked, his eyebrow raised as he looked her up and down.

"Don't give me that look," she laughed as he stepped towards her. He kissed her quickly, and kept his arm hooked around her waist after. "I just got caught up working. Then I...okay, I totally fell asleep." He laughed and shook his head at her. "Just didn't seem to make sense to change."

"So that I'd get to see you like this again?" She shrugged her shoulder coyly and toyed with one of the buttons on his shirt. "That's...nice of you."

She laughed and kissed him quickly, then pulled away and walked into the kitchen.

They hadn't really admitted feelings, other than to say they liked each other (obvious) and they liked the way things were going, that he was crazy about her, and that she loved spending time with him. The way things had gone, so slowly, he wasn't entirely certain that she'd be okay if he confessed how he'd felt about her since before they even made their relationship official. He didn't want to hold back anymore, not when one of the things they'd been trying to do was to just be honest with one another. It had been working so far. And the way he saw it, even if she didn't feel the same way yet, she'd just have to deal with the fact that he was in love with her.

He walked into the kitchen, only to find her pulling two beer from the fridge and twisting the caps off. Her back was to him, so she didn't see him watching (okay, staring) as she tossed the caps basketball-style into the trash bin. When she turned around and noticed him, she laughed a little bit at herself. Then she noticed the weird look on his face.

It was a look she was seeing more and more lately, and she'd been holding back from asking. But right now, him leaning against the door frame and ogling her (not that she didn't love it), she couldn't bite her tongue anymore.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said, though his smirk was totally giving him away. She raised her brow in disbelief as he walked towards her. He took the two bottles from her hands and set them on the table so that she could hold onto him instead. "I love you."

She wrapped her arms around his waist and tipped her head up to look at him. "I know that," she said softly, making him laugh right before he kissed her.

To be honest, that reaction was better than what he'd built up in his head (he'd been working on a 'worst case scenario' basis). He pulled away, noticed they were both smiling, and ran his hands down her back. "Good."

He tried to move away from her completely, but she grabbed him a little tighter. She couldn't believe he was just going to leave it like that. It made her love him even more that he didn't expect anything from her. He wanted it, obviously, but he wouldn't rush her or pressure her. If he hadn't already made it so easy for her to fall for him, that would have probably done the trick.

She looked at him, shook her head and laughed softly. "Well, I love you too," she said, like it was obvious, and he should have at least _tried_ to wait for her to say it back.

"Good," he repeated.

He kissed her again, a little more intensely this time, and she thought that maybe someday she'd get around to telling him that she'd loved him since way before he was even in a position to consider loving her back. Her year had been such a roller coaster ride, from moving back to town, to her work, to Lucas. But she wouldn't change a single thing about it. She wouldn't even have made him single when she returned, because if she really thought about it, the fact that they were strictly friends for a while probably made them stronger. He got to know her with no agenda, and she did the same (though maybe she was at least hopeful). Now that she had him, it all seemed worth it.

For someone who'd just broken off an engagement, he definitely shouldn't have been thinking about marriage again, but he couldn't help himself. They hadn't talked about it, apart from the abstract, the hypothetical, and they were not in any rush at all. But a feeling of 'eventually' hung over them almost all the time. She'd be holding her neighbour's baby, and they'd share a look, or Karen would mention that someone she knew was getting married, and he'd notice the little smile on Peyton's lips.

So as they sat on the sofa, sipping beer and talking about their days, her leaning against him and his arm around her, he let himself think that maybe soon she'd move in with him. Maybe soon enough, he'd put a ring on her finger. Maybe they'd have all those things together that people are supposed to have.

"What's with you?" she asked with a laugh. She was used to him staring off into space, but tonight was even worse than usual.

"Nothing. Just thinking."

"Anything important?" she asked, shifting in her place so she could meet his eyes.

He just smiled, kissed the corner of her mouth and ran his hand gently up and down her arm.

"Everything important."

_**-Fin-**_


End file.
